


Drabble Universe

by Hanari502



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-04-02 03:31:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4044220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hanari502/pseuds/Hanari502
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of various Steven Universe prompt and drabbles suggested through Tumblr or through here. </p><p>If you would like to suggest a drabble, please leave your suggestion in the comments section.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pearlescent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fanfic Commission for Profitmargin on tumblr. 1k words about Steven having a hard time handling Pearl's regeneration the first time around. Birdmom feels abound.

Monday was when the nightmares started. Steven normally didn’t have nightmares. He had pretty great dreams sometimes, or just really long bouts of nothingness. But never nightmares. Or, never nightmares like this.

It had been two weeks since Pearl regenerated and for some reason Steven couldn’t stop replaying her death in his mind. It happened right in front of him, with no warning. She was there one second, lecturing him with a smile on her face, and then…

Steven woke with a yell, panting and sweating with his arm outstretched. He clenched his fist a few times. He was reaching for something, he was reaching for her. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. It was a dream. It was just a dream.

“Steven!”

Like clockwork, she was there. Tall and graceful in her new form, spear out, a look of worry on her face.

Pearl was in one piece.

She fell into a fighting stance. “Are you alright? Did you see something?“

That was quick, even for Pearl. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Pearl, how did you get here so fast?”

The question seemed to knock her off guard. He watched her drop her stance and look awkwardly to the side. “Well, um. Garnet…told me that you uh…were in trouble. So I came straight here to see if there was a…monster.”

He wasn’t buying it, but he’d humor her. “Diiiiiid Garnet tell you that there was no monster?”

She looked at him blankly and deactivated her spear. “No. No she did not.”

He chuckled. Pearl was always quick to jump to conclusions and quick to react. She was probably lying about Garnet, but she’d tell him when she was ready, and he’d wait for her, just like he waited for her to regenerate.

“It’s okay Pearl, it was just a bad dream.” He reassured her, rubbing his eyes again and yawning “I’m fine, really.”

“Well, okay. If you say so. But if you need anything, I won’t be far.”

“I know.”

He watched her walk down the stairs before yelling back to her.

“Pearl?!”

Not even a millisecond had passed before he saw the top of her head again. “Yes? What is it?”

“I just…wanted to say thanks. For being here.”

She smiled at him. “I’ll always be here for you Steven.”

He tried to burn her smile into his eyelids when he closed them.

* * *

 It was Thursday and he didn’t sleep last night. Every time he closed his eyes Pearl’s ‘death’ kept replaying itself over and over again. And the waiting got worse. He always felt like he was waiting, but for nothing. Pearl was there, she was whole again, he’d seen her every day for the past four days and he knew she was there. A part of him still felt like he was really waiting for her to come back.

It was when Garnet took him aside that he realized it was becoming a problem.

“You haven’t been sleeping.” She had mentioned offhandedly during lunch. She didn’t eat, but Steven did, and he wanted to eat with her. He stared down at the grilled cheese sandwich on his plate and picked a slice up, taking a bite.

“How could you tell?”

“You have bags under your eyes.”

He sighed, swallowing. “It’s…complicated. It’s kind of hard.”

“You’ve been having nightmares too.”

“Mhhhhnnnnnn.” He whined and took another bite. Garnet continued.

“Steven, if you’re having trouble with something, talk to us. We can help you.”

“I wanna talk to you about it. I wanna talk to you and Amethyst and Pearl about it but…but it’s just….” He put the sandwich down and put his head in his arms, leaning on the countertop.

“You’re still troubled by what happened two weeks ago.”

He nodded “I keep seeing her…whenever I close my eyes I can her the poof all over again. I’ve never seen that happen to any of you before. I was scared.”

“There’s no need to be afraid, Steven.” She reassured him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Gem regeneration is a normal thing. Amethyst has regenerated one hundred and seventy five times already. It’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I know, but…”

“Have you tried talking about it with Pearl?”

“No. I don’t want her to worry about me.” He picked up the half-eaten slice and put the rest in his mouth, swallowing it. “She worries about me a lot already. I don’t wanna make her worry more.”

“Steven, we all worry about you. We worry about you because we love you, and we want to help you.” She stood up. “You should talk to Pearl about this. She’d want to know.”

“Yeah….yeah you’re right. Why are you so good at being right all the time?”

“It’s a gift.” She started towards the warp pad. “She’ll be out of her room in eleven minutes. Good luck.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have something I need to find and break.”

He nodded and took a bite of his second slice. “Bring me back something!”

And with a warp and a nod, she was gone.

* * *

He waited right outside her door for her, legs crossed pretzel style in front of the warp pad. She jumped when she saw him.

“Oh, Steven. Is something the matter?”

He stood up, donning his Serious Steven face. “Pearl, we need to have a talk. Preferably in the living room surrounded by couch cushions.”

“O…kay.” She raised an eyebrow at him and followed him the seven feet to the couch, sitting down next to him. “Steven, what’s this about.”

He hugged her.

He hugged her tightly as she sat awkwardly holding her hands out, before bringing them around him in worry. “Steven, is everything alright?”

“Promise me you won’t leave me.”

She blinked. “Pardon?”

“Promise me you won’t go anywhere and leave me alone again.” He looked up at her, eyes pooling with tears. “When you went into your gem, I didn’t know what to do. I was so afraid you were going to leave me alone. And I keep having nightmares of you dying and they won’t stop.”

She pet his back as he cried into her shirt. “I had no idea you were still so upset over my regeneration. Steven, of course I’m not going to leave you. I’ll always be here for you, as long as you need me.”

He sniffled and let go of her. “Well, I need you forever. I need all of you forever. Promise me you won’t go away again.”

“Well, technically, if something were to happen to me in the future that warranted another gem regeneration, at that point there’d probably be-” She stopped when she saw his face go from sadness to fear. “….I promise I won’t let it happen again.”

He smiled and hugger her tighter. It was exactly what he needed to hear.

"Good."


	2. Spoonidot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prompt was "Peridot and the discovery of spoons."

They weren’t weapons. She knew that for a fact. Still, she didn’t see any reason why anyone would need them. They were too lightweight to do any damage to anything, to thin and breakable. She’d already snapped six of them while trying to figure out why anyone would need them.

“Hmm…” She inspected one, spinning it around in her hand. There was a reflection of herself in it, but it was upside down. “Curious…”

She pulled out her tape recorder. “Peridot, log twenty six point five. I have come to discover that these ‘ _human spoons_ ’ are not only useless in any sense of regular function, but are also easily breakable. They seem to be made of a carbon-metal alloy that could have been used for literally anything other than these ‘ _utensils_ ’. Moreover, when facing specific directions the concave and convex properties of the ‘ _spoons_ ’ serve a warped reflection of whatever they’re facing. Could it be due to the reflective properties in the alloy? And if so, can this function be utilized as to turn these primitive tools into something more suitable for their make?”

She was pulled out of her rambling by the sound of the front door opening. A quick glance to it showed that it was only Steven coming home from…whatever stevens did. She turned back to the recorder.

“I will consult Steven for further information.”

She didn’t have a chance to get up, however, because a Peridot on the floor surrounded by broken spoons wasn’t that hard for Steven to miss. He put down his backpack. 

“Aw man! Now I have to ask Garnet to buy a new silverware set.” He said, walking over to the mess on the ground. He turned to Peridot. “Did you do this?”

She shoved the spoon in his face.

“What is the purpose of this device?” She asked him. He started picking up the broken metal pieces.

“Well…I use it to eat cereal. And sometimes stick on my nose.” He said, gathering up the pieces in his shirt. “Oh! One time Amethyst and I were able to stick ten of them on hers! But I’m pretty sure she was cheating, since there were spoon shaped bumps on her face when we took ‘em all off.”

She didn’t get it.

“What is…’cereal’.” She asked him, turning the spoon to herself “And why would you stick it on your face? Is that it’s primary function? Is it a type of armor?”

Steven deposited the broken spoons into the trash. “No, no, no. It’s just…here. Let me show you.”

She grumbled when he took the spoon from her and watched in mild horror as he licked the concave side of it and stuck it against his nose. He seemed proud of himself.

“Why would anybody ever want to do that?” She walked over to inspect him. “Don’t humans breathe through their noses?”

He shrugged and the spoon fell off, clattering to the ground. “No. Well, yes. We do. But you do it just because it’s fun, y’know?”

She picked the spoon up, holding it at a distance. It had Steven Saliva on it. “Fun?”

“Yeah! Here, why don’t you try?” He walked over to the drawers and pulled out another spoon, offering it to her. “You can have a new one, since that one has my germs.”

She took it from him, throwing the old one on the ground. It was archaic, this kind of humor. This kind of…’fun’. But she’d try it if it meant gaining Steven’s trust. She stuck out her tongue and licked the spoon, bringing it up to her face, only for it to fall the second she let go. She grumbled.

“This is absolutely moronic.” She berated the fallen spoon. Steven chuckled and picked up both, bringing them to the sink.

“Yeah, it takes a while to get the hang of it. They’re better for eating soup anyway.”

She wouldn’t be trying that again. There were plenty of other things she could learn anyway.

“What’s ‘ _soup_ ’?”


End file.
